


Brick By Brick

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha and Pepper build something together. Pepper doesn’t put her name on this construction either, but she claims a lot more than 12.5% of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brick By Brick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/gifts).



> A fandomstocking fic. :)

            The first thing Pepper did after breaking up with Tony was move out of the penthouse. Their relationship had come to an uncharacteristically quiet end, all things (raging cases of PTSD, stray Iron Man suits, unexpected and unacceptable superpowers, perennial public relations crises) considered, but Pepper didn't want to find out the hard way what a real argument with Tony would mean. Extremis still burnt hot under her skin, and frankly, Pepper felt so bruised and useless after the mature, adult discussion with Tony about ending it that she didn't want to be anywhere near him. She wanted to crawl away and keep quiet for as long as possible.

 

            A new apartment was the obvious solution. There were plenty left in Stark Tower that Pepper could take ownership of if she wanted, and even if they weren't the penthouse, designed to her specifications, they also weren't the penthouse, full of Tony and Avengers and memories. Pepper chose one on a quiet floor well below the penthouse, made sure it had her favourite section of the view and bought it from the subsidiary company that was selling off the apartments. She paid less than they might have tried to screw out of anyone else, but Pepper knew down to the cent how much each apartment was worth. She'd built the damn things.

 

            She had professional movers take her things out of the apartment she'd shared with Tony. Happy supervised them, to prevent any unfortunate accidents should an Avenger happen upon the moving process, and she came home to her new apartment and unrolled her yoga mat and pretended she could stop thinking.

 

            Because there was no such thing as an Avenger with a sense of personal space, it was only ten minutes before a second figure entered the apartment and unrolled a yoga mat beside her.

 

            Pepper breathed smoothly and said nothing. She supposed it would have been too much to expect for the Avengers not to notice that she had gone, and for one of them not to have come to find her; they were Tony's team, but she thought they were fond of her in their own way. She did, however, feel that a generous God would have prevented Natasha Romanoff from waltzing into her apartment while she was in the middle of downward dog.

 

            Yet another reason to turn atheist, Pepper thought, and extricated herself from an undignified position. "You could have knocked."

 

            "Sorry," Natasha said, not sounding sorry at all.

 

            Pepper refrained from enquiring after Tony, who was now only her problem in a professional sense. Instead, she said: "I didn't know you liked yoga."

 

            "Bruce taught me." Natasha stretched. "It's very good for flexibility."

 

            Pepper said nothing. She knew Bruce practised yoga; she had exercised with him before, each of them finding the other calming. She supposed he was with Tony, and felt an unreasonable pang of anger.

 

            "Bruce says he was sorry to hear about the breakup," Natasha volunteered. "He would be here, but-" pause to get one leg unreasonably far over her own head - "Steve hasn't found Rhodey yet, and Steve is not good company for Stark right now. Bruce is keeping things... calm."

 

            Pepper digested this. "Why isn't Steve good company for Tony right now?" she asked, feeling that this was the only part of Natasha's statement she felt equipped to deal with.

 

            "He's disappointed in Tony. He thinks Tony screwed up."

 

            Pepper was silent. "We both screwed up," she said at last, and then corrected herself. "No. We're both screwed up."

 

            Natasha looked at her, and there was something in those level blue eyes that was almost warm enough to be called compassion.

 

 

            Two hours later, after Pepper had finished her workout and taken a shower (in which she'd cried, quietly and unreasoningly) and changed into pyjamas, she came out into the central room of her flat and discovered that Natasha had come back. She was wearing pink pyjamas with little black spiders on and a pair of matching fluffy slippers. Pepper eyed both pyjamas and Natasha speechlessly.

 

            "Clint," Natasha said, apparently under the impression that this explained everything.

 

            "How did you get into my apartment?" Pepper demanded.

 

            "You shouldn't be alone right now," Natasha said, which was true, but not an answer.

 

            The door swung open, and Darcy irrupted into the room, trailing Thor and Steve in her wake. Thor was carrying a large selection of takeaway menus and an even larger selection of bottles of alcohol. Steve bore a sketchbook and a collection of Disney movies, balanced on top of several tubs of ice-cream and boxes of popcorn.

 

            "I have a diet," Pepper said weakly.

 

            "You have a heinous ex-boyfriend," Darcy said, directing traffic. Thor lined the bottles up on the breakfast bar and set the stack of menus down, before relieving Steve of the ice-cream and popcorn.

 

            Pepper opened her mouth and shut it again, then looked at Natasha, who gave an infinitesimal shrug and looked at her as if waiting for her to make her next move.

 

            "All right, then," Pepper sighed, and Steve smiled at her very gently and a little sadly before opening his arms to her. She accepted the hug, which was somewhat all-consuming.

 

            "Don't know what Stark thinks he's doing, breaking up with a lady like you," Steve said into her hair.

 

            "It was a mutual decision, Steve," Pepper said. "An amicable mutual decision."

 

            She took heart from Natasha's eye roll, just visible on the other side of Steve, and it sustained her through takeaway, popcorn, _Tangled,_ four cocktails and half a tub of salted caramel ice-cream, even when Thor spent an hour combing her hair into a state of unbelievable softness and braiding it into what he told her were "braids of happiness and contentment - because my lady Jane informs me that sometimes one must fake these things in order to make them."

 

***

 

            "You're not my PA any more," Pepper said, a week later. "What have you done with Suzanne?"

 

            "Nothing," Natasha said, a little too cool to be reproachful. "She's ill. The suggested replacement was inadequate. I know how you work, and besides -" a shrug - "I'm bored."

 

            "Fine," Pepper said, pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing as she looked down at her schedule and saw today's appointments, but when it came down to it the representative from Hammer Multinational was unexpectedly polite.

 

            "Your PA," he said, as they were concluding the meeting.

 

            "Yes?" Pepper said, developing forebodings.

 

            "She's quite..."

 

            Pepper raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

 

            "...something."

 

            "Yes," Pepper said, and ushered him out of her office. She waited a few minutes after he'd gone, and then went into Natasha's temporary office. Natasha looked up and raised one perfect eyebrow.

 

            "Thanks," Pepper said.

 

            Natasha smiled. "No problem."

 

***

 

            "Goddamnit," Pepper said, seeing the leaflet on her breakfast bar as she entered her apartment and registering that one of the Avengers had been round again. This pleased her neighbours - the IT whiz next door had a very un-secret Thing for Clint, and the little old lady down the corridor spoke highly of Steve's art - but it irritated Pepper, in a quiet, comfortable sort of way. She was sufficiently accustomed to Natasha walking in and out as if she owned the place, Bruce dropping by with a sample of a new tea she might like, and Clint appearing from a zip line outside the window while she was in the middle of breakfast that her complaints were largely academic, and if she were perfectly honest with herself, she would miss them if they stopped it.

 

            That didn't mean that she was going to stop complaining to herself.

 

            The leaflet proved to be about a hot yoga class held in a small gym nearby. Someone had ringed a class time that came at the end of Pepper's usual working day, in firm black biro.

 

            "Hmm," Pepper said, and was not totally surprised when she went along and found Natasha, red-faced but serene, taking part.

 

***

 

            "I have been to thousands of these things by myself, and I have yet to be abducted," Pepper said, hands on the hips of her pearly grey floor-length Azzedine Alaïa, glowering at the top of Natasha's perfectly coiffed curls. Which were currently a rich chestnut brown, not her usual vivid red.

 

            Natasha straightened up, and settled her own violet Christopher Erdem over the flat knives and small handgun she had just concealed about her person. Doubtless there were others. "You always had Stark with you. And Doom is getting... restive." Her eyelids lowered, hooding her eyes with cool calculation, and then she tilted her head to one side, shaking off the politicking. "Steve and Thor are too distracting, and I thought you would prefer my company to Clint's. At least there will be fewer rumours that you're dating again."

 

            "Well, the rumours will be more interesting, anyway," Pepper sighed. "Who are you this evening?"

 

            "Nina Ratchett," Natasha said. "An old friend from Columbia. You asked me because I majored in art history and we never get a chance to catch up."

 

            "Sounds plausible." Pepper picked up the opening night tickets and eyed the exhibition name. " _Halo: Hagiography in art from the Byzantines to Gustav Klimt_ _._ Oh, God."

 

            "Yeah, you'd prefer the Rothko," Natasha said, doing something obscure to one of her shoes. "We can go another time."

           

***

 

            _Not going to be at yoga,_ Pepper texted on a whim, letting herself back into her apartment. _Feeling terrible._ She sneezed all over the screen of her phone, let out a cry of disgust, and went to run herself a bath.

 

            There was no answer for several hours, and then Natasha let herself into the apartment while Pepper was watching wildebeest trundle to their doom on _Planet Earth_.

 

            "You could knock," Pepper said, muffled.

 

            "Do you want me to?" Natasha enquired.

 

            "No," Pepper admitted, blowing her nose. "I'm getting used to unexpected assassins."

 

            Natasha's eyebrows twitched, but she approached, bearing a steaming thermos and a fluffy blanket. "Chicken soup," she said. "Steve insisted."

 

            "And the blanket?" Pepper asked, uncapping the thermos.

 

            "Me," Natasha said, eyes unwavering. "I insisted."

 

            On the TV screen, a wildebeest got eaten by a crocodile. Its bellows of distress filled the room, but Pepper's suffering chest felt warm right through anyway.

 

***

 

            Pepper eyed her diary for the day thoughtfully, then picked up her phone and rang Natasha. "What are you doing at eight o'clock on the twenty-third?"

 

            "Nothing," Natasha said. "Unless aliens invade again. Why?"

 

            "Don't even joke, I've had enough of aliens to last a lifetime. I have a business breakfast with Phillip Leaholt of Hammer Multinational," Pepper told her. "I think it might go more smoothly if you were there, too. And if he wets his pants at the thought of seeing us and doesn't turn up, we can have a delicious breakfast on expenses. What do you think?"

 

            "Sounds great," Natasha said, without hesitation. "How do you want me to play it?"

 

            Pepper was surprised to realise she'd expected this question, and even more surprised to realise she had an answer. "You can come as anyone you like except Natalie Rushman. I'm not asking you to come and take minutes."

 

            Natasha came as Nina, and breakfast was extremely productive.

 

***

           

            Pepper was having coffee with Rhodey and listening, with distinct schadenfreude, to his moaning about Tony, when a text came in on Rhodey's phone to the accompaniment of AC/DC. Rhodey groaned and reached for it.

 

            "Tony?"

 

            "Who else? Asshole." Rhodey squinted at the text and then looked up at Pepper quickly. "It's just saying that your friend Natasha's got hurt. It's not serious, but she's in hospital. He's going to visit, but that'll make him late for lunch."

 

            Pepper felt an unaccustomed rush of concern, and also wondered abstractly when _Natasha_  had become _your friend Natasha_. "Ask him which hospital."

 

            Rhodey sent the text, then tucked his phone away and coughed, rubbing a hand over his knee. "You, uh, you got a good thing going, there."

 

            Pepper blinked at him.

 

            "With Natasha," Rhodey clarified.

 

            "I don't..."

 

            Rhodey frowned. "I thought... You guys are always together."

 

            "Yes, but we're not... _together_ together." Pepper stirred her coffee. "I don't know what we are." She paused, and then, for lack of anyone else to say this to, said: "I don't think Natasha is wired to fall in love with people, although she can - she does care about some people. She says love is for children."

 

            Rhodey looked profoundly worried.

 

            "I'm not looking to fall in love with anyone. I enjoy what we have." Pepper glanced at her watch. "I'm so sorry, Rhodey, but I have a shareholders' meeting - yes, there's Happy..."

 

            She ordered flowers to Natasha's hospital bed from the back of the car, and visited at the end of the day. Her flowers were blooming in a vase beside her bed, cream and primrose and the violet Pepper had specifically asked for, remembering the dress Natasha had worn to the exhibition opening with her, and Natasha's favourite of the Rothkos they had later gone to see. Natasha lay in her hospital bed sleeping and almost unearthly still, chest rising and falling with uncanny evenness, and Clint slumped in a plastic chair beside her bed.

 

            "Hey, Ms Potts," he said wearily, rubbing his eyes. "Good to see you."

 

            "How is she?" Pepper asked, unnerved by Natasha's limpness in the bed; the tension that seemed a vital part of her was gone.

 

            "Fine. She'll be fine. She's not hurt bad, she just needs to sleep it off." Clint yawned. "She'll be pleased to hear you were here."

 

            Pepper hummed. "You look like you need to sleep it off, too."

 

            "Aw, I..."

 

            "I'm sure I can ask the staff for a cot," Pepper said, "and I have my tablet; I can work from here for a few hours while you sleep."

 

            Clint looked at her with his sharp sniper's eyes, half unfocused with exhaustion, and nodded slowly. "Yeah, Nat would be okay with that."

 

            "Pleased to hear it," Pepper said.

 

***

 

            It was at the Stark Industries Fourth of July barbecue, nine months after they'd broken off their relationship, that Tony finally said something to Pepper about it. Pepper had found herself a quiet corner, and was taking two seconds to catch her breath before going over to make a fuss of the PR department. Nearby, Bruce was talking earnestly to the small group of R&D scientists he actually enjoyed working with, and Steve was teaching a bunch of small girls to throw a punch and telling them tall stories about Peggy Carter, all interspersed with moral strictures about violence not being the answer to their problems. Clint was deep in conversation with a couple of people who had been in ballistics when SI still did weaponry, while Thor was serving as a climbing frame for a number of little kids, roaring with laughter. Natasha and Rhodey were chatting quietly - and she was just Natasha today, not Natalie or Nina or Nicole - over hamburgers. And Tony...

 

            Tony slid into place next to Pepper and stood there for a minute, watching Natasha and Rhodey as she was.

 

            "Y'know, I'm glad you're happy," he said unexpectedly, and nodded at Pepper. "Up top, Potts."

 

            Pepper glanced over at Natasha and Rhodey at just the same moment as Natasha glanced over at her and smiled a sphinx's smile. Pepper smiled back, and when Tony offered his hand, she high-fived it.


End file.
